Vacation! An Extra Excuse to Read. And My August BOTM Picks!

I am so excited for my upcoming vacation. It means no work for 10 days and plenty of time to read! To be honest I might be more excited to photograph all my beautiful TBR books while I’m on vacation. It’ll mean more lovely photos and different settings for those photographs than what I have available to me now. I’m not going far, only to Cape Cod, still in Massachusetts but it’s so different from the rest of MA that it feels like another world. We go every year and I always spend the whole year looking forward to it. Where do you guys like to vacation?

In the past few days I’ve read Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Both were really great reads. Expect reviews forthcoming in the next week or so. Hoping to photograph the books while I’m on vacation. Quick synopsis for both!

Rabbit Cake is told through the eyes of Elvis, a 10 year old girl who’s mother, a sleep walker and sleep swimmer, drowns while swimming in the Chattahoochee river. We follow her through 18 months of the grieving process. The book is heartfelt, funny, sad and totally uplifting.

The Hate U Give is a powerful YA novel that follows Starr, a girl who grows up in the hood but goes to a private school. She feels torn between two versions of herself. After a party near her home in Garden Heights her childhood friend gets shot by a white cop while driving her home. The book follows the aftermath of his death and Starr’s rebirth as a brave voice for the black lives matter movement. An excellent and very timely read.

Both books were really great reads! I’m not sure what to read next. I’m waiting on my August Book of the Month box. Eagerly. I can’t wait to get it. All of the picks this month were so good that I had a really hard time picking just 3. My plan is to purchase the others. Quick run down of the choices: Eat Only When You’re Hungry by Lindsay Hunter; The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh; Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips; Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert; The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyn

I picked the first three I listed with the intent of purchasing the other two shortly. The box likely won’t arrive till Monday so I’m trying to pick something up that I’ve already got. The problem is I have so many that it’s very hard to pick what I’m in the mood for!